


Shadows

by Decepticonsensual



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 07:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/937311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The battle with the Autobots has left one Decepticon officer trapped, another desperate, a third determined - and all, in some way, broken.  What now?  (Set after the Transformers Prime finale, "Deadlock", with major spoilers for that episode.  MegatronxStarscream implied.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows

_The many men so beautiful,_

_And they all dead did lie,  
_

_And a thousand thousand slimy things  
_

_Lived on; and so did I.  
_

_\- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner  
_

 

He had been a prince, once.

A prince of this place, in fact – no.  No, not this place, with its pristine walls and towers of translucent crystal, glowing softly as if lit from within, all underneath achingly empty skies.   The Vos he’d ruled had burned, its spires shattering under a heavy Autobot ground assault.  This facsimile disgusted him.  From the corner of his optic, the light of the shimmering towers seemed to pulse in rhythm; it was as if he weren’t flying over a city, but some sprawling, grotesque organism, all of it united in a single, unnatural sparkbeat.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.  Reviving Primus would never have been in _their_ plan, any more than reawakening Unicron; why give either of those behemoths the power to interfere in Cybertronian affairs?  Theirs was to have been a Cybertron created through sheer force of will, as Darkmount had once been.  Starscream himself would have been granted the freedom to shape the new Vos as he saw fit.  And Mega –

Starscream’s engines screamed as he kicked into overdrive, tearing through the vacant skies of the Vos that wasn’t his, veering so close to one of the mocking fake towers that his exhaust blackened its surface.

Nothing was how it was supposed to be.

 

***

_  
Nickel, iron, cobalt, chrome…_

The metronomic beat of the nursery rhyme didn’t echo, there in the quiet of the Shadowzone.  Echoing would actually have been less eerie.  Sound behaved differently here.  The distorted space acted almost like a padded room, muffling and absorbing any noise generated by the intruder.  Nothing in the Shadowzone itself made a sound; even footsteps were silent.

There were four lines to the song, but Soundwave didn’t move on to the second.  Instead, he paused the ancient recording, letting each note of that opening line linger in the clammy air.  Only after a long while, when the silence had thickened once more to the point where it was threatening to choke him, did he allow himself to resume playing again – and even then, it was only the first line over.

_Nickel, iron, cobalt, chrome…_

Fourteen times he played that single line, savouring every tone, every almost imperceptible variation in the voice of the long-dead singer.  Then he let the second line join the first:

_Nickel, iron, cobalt, chrome,_

_He’ll eat your soul, turn your spark to stone…_

He remembered the moment he’d been ripped away from the endless stream of data that flowed around and through him, and plunged into this dimension.  Even as he’d fought to keep the twin groundbridges from tearing him apart, he could still hear the sounds of battle all around, feel the thrum of the _Nemesis’s_ great engines, reach out with his mind and pull forth every last scrap of information from every datanet, human and Cybertronian, in existence –

– and then there was nothing.

_Nickel, iron, cobalt, chrome,_

_He’ll eat your soul, turn your spark to stone,_

_Nickel, iron, cobalt, chrome…_

It was useless – even at this rate, he would finish the song in relatively short order.  And then he would need another to keep the silence at bay, and another.  Soundwave had millions upon millions of data logs recorded, and if he played them back to back, they could keep him occupied for centuries.

But what were a few centuries, compared to forever?

_Nickel, iron, cobalt, chrome,_

_He’ll eat your soul, turn your spark to stone,_

_Nickel, iron, cobalt, chrome,_

_Run, little robot, run away home._

***

 

Shockwave noted the roar of jet engines outside, coming in hot.  Starscream was venting hard when he walked into the cave they’d made a makeshift base.  A surveillance camera swiveled awkwardly to follow him, and he snarled at it, taking a half-hearted swipe with his claws.

“Do not damage that.  Our salvage options in this area are limited.”

“Fat lot of good that… _toy_ is.  I was already in the front door.  If I were an Autobot, I’d have eviscerated you by now.”  It was said with a certain relish, as if Starscream were still weighing the possibility himself, and finding it far from unpleasant.

“But I could already see that you were not.”  Shockwave lightly tapped the screen in front of him.  “I have made great progress with the scanning device in your absence.  Not only can it pinpoint the location of the _Nemesis_ , but it will now allow us to accurately detect individual Autobot energy signatures within a range of two hundred and eighty miles.”

“So, if we see them headed in our direction, we can do – what, exactly?  Scurry and hide like fleshlings?”  Starscream had begun to pace.  That was becoming more and more frequent, Shockwave had noticed.  On the rare occasions when the seeker even returned to the lab after his reconnaissance flights, he was in constant motion:  wings flicking irritably, claws clacking, optics never still.  “We need _weapons_ , Shockwave.  I don’t intend to let the _Autobots_ build up their defences on planet before we’re able to strike.”

There was something new in the way he said _Autobots_ – or rather, something old; a venom Shockwave couldn’t remember hearing in Starscream’s voice since the early days of the war.  “Our first priority is information,” he pointed out mildly.  “Until we know the fate of the Vehicons, we must proceed on the assumption that we are substantially outnumbered.  I am capable of constructing weapons that will improve our chances in battle, provided that the materials can be found, but it will take time.  Logic dictates that –”

“The Pit take your logic!”  Starscream stepped up, almost toe-to-toe with him, so that Shockwave’s field of vision was abruptly filled with nothing but a pair of heated red optics.  The seeker’s hand lashed out… but stopped just short of Shockwave’s plating, and then slowly lowered.  When Starscream spoke again, his voice was cool and contemptuous.  “He was always so _impressed_ with you.  And what did that vaunted logic of yours ever do for us?  If you’d managed to finish the SynthEn formula on your own, that accursed Autobot medic would never have been on the ship to begin with.  This is _your_ fault, Shockwave.”

When Shockwave finally replied, his voice was thick with static.  “Dwelling on past failures… is illogical.”

Starscream leaned back, but only slightly, not giving Shockwave room to vent; his optics narrowed.  “How convenient.”

“Information,” Shockwave insisted quietly, matching Starscream’s gaze.

After a moment, Starscream drew back, hissing.  “ _Fine_.  I’m going flying.”

“I would advise against it.  As our remote scanning capabilities improve, the fuel used in these increasingly frequent reconnaissance missions, and the risk of being seen, are no longer worth –”

Once, he knew, Starscream would have argued with him.  Would have snapped at Shockwave to remember his place, and not to presume to advise, much less, order, the Decepticons’ second-in-command when it came to military matters.

This time, the liquid sound of transformation and the rush of engines cut Shockwave off.  Starscream was gone before he could even finish the sentence.

 

***

 

Even flight was no relief, when every inch of the planet was thick with memories of _him._

Kaon.  The gladiatorial arena where Starscream had first come, in disguise, to see him fight, to weigh the stories he had heard of this hero of the pits.  Polyhex, and the battle where a lucky shot had almost taken off the Decepticon leader’s arm.  Afterward, Starscream’s claws had teased the ragged edges of the wound, drawing an anguished roar – and the still-good arm had pinned him to the wall, his wings scraping over metal as he squirmed and begged for more.  Praxus:  the long siege, and the night the city finally surrendered.  They had looked at each other in the smouldering ruins of the city hall and smiled – sharply, at first, through exhaustion and pain, and then widely, drunkenly, hardly daring to believe how close they were to absolute victory.

The restored city hall gleamed in the middle of a deserted square.

The sight of it suddenly made Starscream burst into laughter – awful, stuttering, helpless laughter.  He sped away from the city and landed on a nearby cliff, where he all but collapsed, laughing himself sick.

_See what we fought for!  Six million years of war, and there isn’t a trace of it left.  The whole thing was a giant game, in the end, and all the Autobots did was reset the pieces._

The laughter dissolved slowly into twitches and hiccups.  When it finally passed, Starscream was taken aback to realise that there was still coolant leaking down his cheeks.  Angrily, he rubbed a palm over his optics.

The wind was kicking up – a storm coming.  Starscream tensed, but he knew there was no need:  Shockwave had explained that the rain now lacked the acidic properties that millennia of Cybertronian industry had given it.  More like Earth rain, he had helpfully added.

Even _rain_ was wrong.

_I still feel you everywhere I turn, but I can’t see you.  They’ve_ erased _you from this world.  Oh Primus, master, they’ve won, they’ve won._

***

 

He was so close that he could lean in and count the sharp striations marking the Wrecker’s bright blue optic, but he couldn’t touch.  And after that first attempt, he hadn’t tried. 

He circled as he watched Wheeljack work, and tried to record those blunt fingers moving with surprising grace over the console that had once been Soundwave’s.  Maps and schematics flashed to life under his touch – security patrols, sites of energon deposits, what looked like the blueprints for a series of construction devices.  There was no sound, of course, and even the image was distorted, but new data was new data.

Even if he would never again be able to use it.

When the Wrecker finally set the perimeter alarms and headed off to recharge, though, Soundwave cringed.  These were the worst times.  As frustrating as it could be to silently observe the Autobot scum crawling over his master’s ship, it was better to have the distraction.  When the _Nemesis_ darkened and fell silent, there were only his precious, hoarded data files; the steady, barely-detectible pulse of his distress call (a packet of coordinates and instructions, transmitted on an endless loop, that might somehow be able to bridge the gap between dimensions); and the memory.

Memory, singular, because it crowded out all the others.

Soundwave was soaring through the _Nemesis_ , its familiar corridors stretched out nightmarishly; no sound, not even the frantic pulse of his own spark.  He couldn’t track the battle, or even hear it, but he didn’t need to.  The Autobots could only have one destination in mind.

When he finally burst out into space, the first thing he saw was Megatron, and Soundwave’s fuel froze.  His master was lying prone and unmoving at the edge of the Omega Lock.  Above him, Starscream and the others were tearing into the Autobots, but they were too far away; even if they saw what was about to happen, they couldn’t reach Megatron in time.  As it was, only Soundwave saw:  with heavy, ominous steps, the Prime – the sniveling little librarian, the _traitor_ – approached the fallen Decepticon leader, and raised his blaster to shoot him in the back.

No no _no_ –

With a snarl, Megatron spun around, his optics triumphant.  Soundwave sagged in relief.  His master brought the Dark Star Sabre up in a wide arc, and the sword’s pulse knocked the Prime backwards, sending him skittering off the edge of the _Nemesis,_ where he clung like a space barnacle to the hull of the ship.  Megatron stalked towards him.  His gait was weary, but still powerful, and as he lifted his sword, it was as if the years melted away.  For a second, Soundwave was watching Megatronus the gladiator, readying the killing stroke that would mean his victory.

And something deep within the Omega Lock _moved_.

What happened next was too fast for thought, or Soundwave would have realised the futility of what he was doing.  Acting on instinct, he transformed and plummeted down towards the Autobot scout.  He reached out to grab the mech, twisting his body as he fell, using his own momentum to wrest that sword away from his master’s back –

– and he slid right through the scout.

Megatron’s optics loomed wide and startled, inches from Soundwave’s face.  Soundwave stared, then looked down.  The Autobot’s sword was protruding grotesquely from his own body – the blade would have split him open from the throat to just above the waist – and jutting into Megatron’s chest.  The bright glow of his spark was visible, shining through the shattered Deceptibrand.  It was Megatron’s mark, _their_ mark, modeled on the shape of Soundwave’s helm to honour his loyalty, all those ages ago.  Soundwave reached to touch it… and his fingertips passed right through the obscenely twisted metal.  And as he watched, Megatron’s spark abruptly went out.

That was when Soundwave threw back his head and screamed.

The sound of it was guttural and rough, his disused voice breaking.  He screamed until his throat was scraped raw, and the sickening softness of that cursed dimension swallowed the sound as if it had never been.

 

***

 

Starscream’s stillness was the first thing Shockwave noticed.

The seeker was standing at the entrance to the cave, looking out.  His wings were swept downwards, and they didn’t so much as twitch at Shockwave’s approach.

“Did you discover anything?”

Starscream didn’t bother to turn around when he answered.  “Nothing we didn’t already know.”

There was nothing to prevent Shockwave from returning to work; and yet he stayed, staring at that supple, dangerously quick figure that had never seemed fragile before now.

“You shouldn’t have held me back.”  Starscream’s voice was awful to hear.  There was none of his normal swagger; it sounded tinny and broken.

“You could not have taken them all.”  _And you would be dead now_ , Shockwave added silently, but for once, that didn’t seem to number among Starscream’s concerns.

“I’d have killed the scout, at least.”

“Insufficient.”  Shockwave took hold of Starscream’s shoulder and turned him around, fixing him with a brutally frank gaze.  “A single death, even _his_ death, is worthless in exchange for the loss of our liege.  He will not be avenged until we can eliminate every remaining Autobot.  And not quickly.  They will burn, as we had to watch Lord Megatron burn.”

Starscream flinched, and Shockwave could understand why:  up until this moment, they had both avoided saying the name.  It was too fresh.  “And how do you propose that the two of us will pull this off?”

“The collection of reliable intelligence,” Shockwave replied  mildly.  “The judicious application of technology.  And there are three of us.”

And with that, he pressed a key, and a groundbridge opened.

 

***

 

It made a sound.

_It made a sound._

There, not ten yards away, a groundbridge portal spiraled into existence; it shone in vivid greens and blues, not the muted colours of the Shadowzone, and even though the place tried to suffocate it, the noise – a sigh like a piston releasing – was unmistakable.

Soundwave rose unsteadily, and stared at the groundbridge… for a fraction of a second.  Then he sprinted forward, diving into his transformation without breaking stride.

 

***

 

A familiar blue predator drone came rushing through the bridge, and an instant later, Soundwave was touching down in front of them.  Shockwave stepped forward, a little more quickly than usual, to assist the shaky-looking communications officer.  Starscream noticed Soundwave’s needlelike claws reach out tremulously, until they made contact with the solid plating of Shockwave’s elbow; then Soundwave’s fingers wrapped around the scientist’s arm and clung fast.

“Where in the _Pit_ were you?  Did the Autobots capture you?”  _Again_ , Starscream added mentally, but he refrained from saying it.  Even he wasn’t in the mood to torment Soundwave right now.  The mech looked close to collapse… and if he was honest with himself, Starscream also had to admit that he was a welcome sight.

Shockwave answered for him.  “Not quite.  The Autobot pets succeeded in trapping Soundwave in some form of pocket dimension before the final battle, and I have only just managed to extract him.”

Leaning heavily on the arm Shockwave had wrapped around his waist, Soundwave turned his head.  His visor flickered, flashing a jagged waveform several times, before another image haltingly took its place.  Starscream leaned forward, frowning.  It was a map.  The location was the Autobots’ landing site, he realised after a moment; the flashing Autobrands must mark defences of some kind.  The image dissolved into static, to be replaced by another.  Weapons inventory.  And another.  Energon deposits.  Shift rotas.  Schematics for rebuilding.

“How much of this do you have?”

In answer, Soundwave sped up the display, weeks’ worth of data streaming past in a matter of seconds.  Starscream’s ventilations caught.

“What was that you were saying about information, Shockwave?”  It was meant to sound supercilious, but there was a roughness to Starscream’s voice, even to his own ears; something like hunger.  “Soundwave, you will take over the gathering of intelligence.  You’ve done well; now we need to track their every move.  It will enable us to strike and fade until we start to wear down their strength.  Shockwave, that frees you to work on weaponry.  I want the whole range, light, heavy, personal, deployable from a distance.  And Shockwave?”  He smiled; it was thin as a knife blade, and felt rusty from disuse, but it was _real_.  “Bring me something to make them burn.”

“Yes, Lord Starscream.”

“What… what did you call me?”

Shockwave gave him a long, measuring look, then gently helped Soundwave prop himself against a console, hovering until he was sure that the communications officer could support his own weight.  Then the scientist came to loom over Starscream, that single red optic inscrutable.  “The Decepticons must have one vision, and one leader.  It is logical.”  With that, he knelt heavily in front of the seeker.

“Starscream.”

Still transfixed by the sight of Shockwave paying him homage, Starscream jumped, momentarily panicked at the unfamiliar voice until he put it together.  He had never heard Soundwave speak.  That vow of silence had predated his joining the Decepticons.  _But that was a vow made to Megatron._ Soundwave’s voice was surprisingly deep, a staticky growl even colder than Shockwave’s.  It seemed to falter for a moment, and then he continued.  “Starscream, Lord Megatron’s chosen.”

Pushing off from the console, Soundwave hunched for a moment, then drew himself upright and took a shaky step forward.  Then, gradually, another, and again, until he genuflected at Starscream’s feet with something like his normal grace.

“Soundwave:  yours to command.”

Staring down at them, Starscream felt the same wild, hopeless laughter threaten to choke him.  Leader of the Decepticons, with his two greatest rivals kneeling in submission.  Lord Starscream, the Emperor of Destruction!  Of course, it would finally come now, when he had never wanted anything less in his life.  Megatron – Megatron would have laughed.

But there were other things Starscream wanted – wanted with a white heat that put his old ambitions to shame.  Already, a part of his mind was weighing the two officers in front of him, not as obstacles, for once, but as tools.  The rest of his thoughts were racing across the whitewashed surface of Cybertron, to where the Prime and his lackeys waited.

_Enjoy your creation while you can.  We are coming for you._

He had been a prince, once.  That was what he called upon now; that and the memory of kneeling before Megatron for the first time, so long ago.

Starscream reached out, resting one hand on Shockwave’s shoulder, the other on Soundwave’s arm, claw-tips brushing the Deceptibrand there.  A benediction.  And a command.

“Decepticons, rise up.”


End file.
